Riding

Riding Training

The relationship between the rider and the horse is important for competitions. You can have a fantastic horse, but when being ridden by a rookie jockey, you won’t see very many wins.

When first starting out, a human Sim should head to the bookstore and pick up the Riding Volume 1 skill book for a measly $50. Like with other skills, there are three volumes, but as you’ll soon see, volumes 2 and 3 are a waste of your time and money. However, it can take a while for a Sim to hit level 1 and 2 in Riding, especially with a new horse, so it’s best to just read for your first three levels and be done with it. Optimally, unless the Sim has other things going on, she’ll be able to hit Level 3 in Riding from the books alone in under two days.

While your Sim is reading about Riding, have your horse train itself to get at least to Racing level 2. Now, your Sim will always gain Riding as long as he’s mounted on a horse and going somewhere. The problem is, early on, that means the horse is moving at barely a walk. Not only does this take a while to travel anywhere, hence why reading is the best course of action.

That all changes once the horse is up to Racing level 2 and your Sim is up to Riding level 2 or 3. At that point, have your Sim mount the horse, and then start running along your Racing or Jumping course. Your Sim will gain Riding fairly rapidly, usually gaining it faster if the horse is succeeding will with the jumping course or moving faster with the racing course. In other words, your rider and horse will gain their respective skills together.

The other major benefit of doing this is that, every moment the rider and horse spend together, they’re gaining their relationship to each other regardless of what they’re doing.